DDUP Rejects EMC, Suit Filed

The board of directors at Santa Clara, CA-based Data Domain (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DDUP]]) yesterday recommended that shareholders reject a $1.8 billion, $30-per-share cash tender offer from Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]). The board of the data deduplication software company stuck to its earlier decision to pursue a merger with Sunnyvale, CA-based NetApp (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NTAP]]), which is also offering $30 per share in cash and stock but whose offer is valued at $1.9 billion overall. Meanwhile, two law firms said yesterday that they filed a class-action shareholder lawsuit against Data Domain in Delaware on June 12; the firms, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP of New York, NY, and Grant & Eisenhofer, P.A., of Wilmington, DE, said in a press release that the board members at Data Domain are “breaching their fiduciary duties to their shareholders by refusing to negotiate with a potential acquirer, EMC Corporation…and for agreeing to sell Data Domain to NetApp without taking any steps to maximize the price paid to Data Domain’s shareholders.”

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/